Over the years, the festival has specialized in retrospectives of feature films with panel discussions on their cultural capital and spiritual significance.  The eventual inclusion of a Documentary and Short Films Program at the festival added a component of freshness to the annual event that demonstrates CAFF’s contemporary spirit as well as its commitment to honor masterpieces of the past.

The first CAFF was held in 1994 with the theme Los Angeles in the Movies: Dreams/Conflicts/Lifestyles.  Classic L.A. films included were Chinatown and Blade Runner.  The following year’s festival The Quest for Reconciliation in Cinema premiered Kzysztof Kieslowski’s A Short Film about Killing and A Short Film About Love from his highly aclaimed Decalogue series.   In 1996,  CAFF explored the theme The Search for Meaning in Film screening films such as Babette’s Feast, Apocalypse Now and Crimes and Misdemeanors. 

The 4th Annual CAFF, Seeking to Connect; Outsiders and Communities on Screen featured films that depict Los Angeles as a multicultural center, spotlighting the relentless pressures on Angelenos brought on by racial and ethnic complexity.  Films screened included City Lights, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Zoot Suit.

The 1998 CAFF, Chasing the Sacred: The Cinema of Spirituality was a celebratory event of gala proportions.  The Reel Spirituality Symposium sponsored by Fuller Theological Seminary partnered with the festival in a headliner screening of Robert Duvall’s The Apostle.  Image:  A Journal of the Arts and Religion held an annual conference in conjunction with the festival.  The Festival screenings included Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev. 

Following the "millennial" topic trends littering the 1999 cultural landscape the City of the Angels Film Festival employed the theme: Embracing Apocalypse: Visions of Faith and Fear. Our 6th annual event included brilliant visual films: Brazil by director Terry Gilliam and End of Violence by director Wim Wenders. The Festival chose the classics Lost Horizon, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Hitchcock's The Birds to remind us that the apocalyptic has been present throughout the 20th century in the movies. No program on the "apocalypse" theme could ignore Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or Woody Allen's Sleeper.  Lamerica gave us eyes to see the millennial oppression that is so far but yet so close.

The CAFF 1999 was proud to include the presentation of the Luminosa Award for Unity to Jack and Patt Shea by the Focalare Movement.  Additionally, the "Reel Sprituality" conference participated in CAFF screenings and the shorts and documentaries supplied new and provocative viewing opportunities for festival participants.

The theme for the Millenium edition of CAFF was Road Trip: Moving with the Spirit and involved an international sampling of the pecularly American tradtion of literary and literal transit as an allegory of the quest for the spiritual.

In 2001, our program focussed on Touches of Evil as they have been portrayed and explored in a medium composed entirely of the projected dance between light and dark.

In the wake of the anniversary of 9/11, we re-examined the concept of American Dream(s): Life, Liberty, Pursuit of...  From Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to Taxi Driver, Hollywood has been instrumental in defining American Dreams and exporting them.  Other filmmakers have voiced  their judgements of our dreams.  Additionally, 2002 marked the return of Family Theater's Angelus Student Film Awards as part of our festival.  Originally part of the City of Angels Film Festival, then spun off as a separate event, this homecoming was particularly sweet.

The Tenth Annual CAFF Event celebrated 100+ years of cinematic art.  We presented Revelations/Revolution: Celebrating a Century of Cinema as our theme.  Our screenings included Intolerance; Man With A Movie Camera; Nanook Of The North; Metropolis; Snow White; The Bicycle Thief; The 400 Blows; The Graduate; Don't Look Back; Do The Right Thing; Pulp Fiction; Star Wars; and Moulin Rouge.  This dizzying display of sights and sounds launched us into our second decade of festival programming.

The 2004 CAFF presented the theme Reel Myths showcasing the mythical imagination in film in which we gain understanding of ourselves, others, and societies we are constructing. Why are we fascinated with the mythical and mysterious? Movies employed in the 2004 Festival included La Belle Et La Bete (Beauty and the Beast), Yojimbo, Chinatown, Road Warrior, Black Orpheus, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and The Wizard of Oz.

Divine Comedy was the theme for CAFF 2005. Seriously... Drama is easy. Comedy is hard. Even dangerous. Why is that? Can reverence and comedy co-exist? Does God have a sense of humor? There's a set up for several punch lines. For our 12th annual gathering we explored the sublime AND the ridiculous: Duck Soup, Annie Hall, The General, The Lady Eve, Delicatessen, The Big Lebowski, Blazing Saddles, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Rushmore, and La Vita e Bella.

At CAFF 2006, we examined Heroes: What Price Glory? Joseph Campbell said we've always needed them. The cinema creates, examines, debunks and sells them. So... What makes a hero? Choosing a course without regard to self? Or is it choosing an action in spite of knowing the cost to self? If someone acts out of hunger for glory, does that disqualify them as heroes? Can an anti-hero still be a hero? And if there are always two sides to every conflict, is one person's hero another person's villain? Are heroes tools or fools of God? Writer Director Randall Wallace, whose work has consistently focused on the nature and context of heroes, was our special guest and for the first time, CAFF offered the MASTER TRACK: Two days of career expanding insghts and information for creative professionals and anyone who aspires to be one.

The City of the Angels Film Festival explores the intersection of Film/City/Religion.  We attempt in each festival to offer great cinematic art in the most culturally rich and diverse city in the 21st century where we both practice and probe religion.

Scott Young, Co-Founder and 
Jerry L. Jackson, Exec. Committee